Contents

The website was founded in 2005 by Tom Gerace, a diminutive entrepreneur who previously founded the affiliate marketing company, Be Free.[1] Gather attracted investments and partnerships from media companies ranging from McGraw-Hill[2] and Hearst Publications[2] to American Public Media[1] and a member of the McClatchy family. Starbucks chose Gather over other social networking sites because of its adult demographic.[1] Lotus founder Jim Manzi was an early investor.[3] Gather was one of very few 2007 startups to use television advertising.[1]

Members received their own subdomain, where they could publish articles and share comments. Also, members could create groups pertaining to their own efforts, or to any other topic. The most popular sections were those for breaking celebrity news, politics and sports. According to their privacy policy[6] there is no way to remove one's account from the site other than contacting support via form mail.

However, the Gather.com page now appears to be completely defunct from a social networking perspective. It is no longer possible to receive a subdomain or to remove articles for privacy purposes. Enquiries to the parent company, Skyword, about removing licensed material, go unanswered, or are redirected to Kitara Media, which also doesn't answer. The future of Gather.com remains unclear.[7]